Saints Row IV: Enter The Dominatrix
This is kind of a weird DLC, but not for the normal reasons. It basically is a "behind the scenes" take on what was originally supposed to be a DLC for the third game, except it got scrapped, with some of the scraps then becoming SR4. But yeah, this is the characters themselves talking about the DLC in interviews and whatnot about how it happened, interspersed with some actual gameplay for you, the player. It also has the most balls-out unexpected ending for a DLC ever; purely out of left field for that one.

Saints Row IV: How The Saints Saved Christmas
Shaundi comes back from the future to warn the Saints about what will happen, and that they need to rescue Santa from the evil Clawz. It's an interesting take, with The President not really being big on Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/Etc. since The President generally takes whatever they want anyway. But anyway, the DLC bounces around the world on various missions, even going to the North Pole, which has been taken over by Clawz with the Resistance being led by Mrs. Claus. It's a light and fun DLC that totally fits with the rest of the story, and really fills you with the Holiday spirit (in that way that only Saints Row can).

Well, it's 2015, so I figured I'd pick this back up again and see if I can't knock out a few more games. Little did I know what I was getting into.

Gone Home
This is one of those games-that-isn't-entirely-a-game. Like, you play a fictional character, but the gameplay amounts to walking around your parents' house and clicking on things to figure out what's going on. There's no "action", just reading and occasionally listening to a mid-90s Grrl Rock song.

That said, it's amazing. The premise is that you play as Kaitlin Greenbriar, home from her year abroad and arrives to an empty house. Katie then has to search the house to figure out what's going on. Upon doing so, she finds out that not all is as she left it (especially since it's a new house), and there are secrets to be unearthed. The house itself may even be haunted?

The one not so great thing is that it's not a very long game. I cleared it in just over an hour, probably about the same amount of time to do what Katie did in real-time. It's a minor complaint though, since the game itself absolutely sucked me into the world and the time spent didn't feel like it.

Bleed
This is one of those games where it's NES-flavored Contra, but you're a girl with pink hair and you have to kill the World's Greatest Heroes. Also now you can aim with a mouse, so you get 360 degrees of projectile firing instead of your standard front or diagonal stuff. That said, it's still a 2D game, so there's nothing outrageous in the way of movement; you're generally moving left to right, with the occasional vertical stuff. Oh, and there's a Bullet Time effect you can occasionally use.

Quote:

Wryn is a girl with a big arsenal and big dreams -- she wants to be the ultimate videogame hero! Help her take down the Greatest Heroes of All Time in an action-packed bid to claim the title for herself and show the world what a true hero looks like!]

It's also a series of levels that aren't really connected, so you can play one and then shut your computer off, then come back later and select a different level (or the same!) and play some more. It's also got Dem Cheevos, and Leaderboards, so you can compare your e-peen to other people who've played. I played with a KBM set up instead of a controller, so that might work better for some people than others. I did have a bit of fun, but there was a lot of frustrating points for me (considering I've only played for around an hour) that made me put it away.

Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell
This is touted as "standalone DLC for Saints Row IV", but I'd broaden that to the entire franchise. You don't need SRIV to play it (though you need to have played SRIV), and it definitely moves the plot forward as a whole instead of being a little diversion.

So, the gang is celebrating Kinzie's Birthday, playing games and such, well, here's the trailer:

That about sums it up. The game is pretty fun, and by "game" I mean "you get superpowers and one is actual flying and not just controlled falling like in the previous game". The city Hell takeover stuff is pretty boiler-plate, and the aforementioned superpowers are upgraded in the same way they were in SRIV (except they're called souls now instead of data clusters). The only difference in that regard is that unlike SRIV, you need to get every single soul cluster available if you want to max out all of your powers. But hell, you don't need to do that unless you're a completionist. You can generally max one or two and be totally fine. Same thing with weapons, though as before, the game encourages different attack styles (except maybe against the larger bosses where melee isn't entirely efficient).

As far as the story, it's neat, and there are multiple endings that you can choose. The only real complaint I have is Kinzie. Not the character herself, since Kinzie is still pretty funny, but it seems she's only there because Volition/Deep Silver wanted the game to be co-op. She's not really relevant to the story (other than it being her Birthday), and could have been played by any of the other characters in the group. I mean, I like Kinzie, but having Pierce, Shaundi, or even Matt or Asha would roughly be the same experience.

Anyway, the game is good (though not $20 good, wait for a sale), and if you're a fan of the franchise, it's definitely worth picking up.

Wolfenstein: The New Order
This is not your Daddy's Wolfenstein. I don't say this to be edgy, but because it really isn't. To me, B.J. Blazkowitz is a human-shaped Nazi killing machine, and to say he isn't in the most recent incarnation would be a disservice. But this time around he's also got thoughts, feelings, and characterization. You'll gut a Nazi soldier like a fish, but when you're sneaking into a prison from the underwater tunnels you get internal dialog like "I swam in rivers when I was a kid, but the water was never this dark." Or he'll dream of a life after the War, where he gets to have the backyard barbeque with the wife, kids, nice house and a white picket fence. For reference, none of that stuff existed before (in my experience) in the games.

It's got a similar thing going compared to BioShock Infinite, where the gameplay is kind of at odds with the story. Except this time, it's the reverse. The story is there to push you from massacre to massacre, instead of the massacres pushing you from story beat to story beat. And despite the ridiculous prowess that at murder they display, B.J. is also absolutely okay with killing, whereas Booker was not.

All that said, this was a pretty solid game, the characters around B.J. were interesting, even the (spoiler?) love interest, who herself was actually skilled, and therefore useful instead of alternating between sitting there useless and being a damsel in distress.

I have a couple other niggling issues, but nothing that'd be a dealbreaker by any stretch. It should also be said that there's two "versions" of the game, depending on who you save in the first chapter. Both paths are (apparently) 90% the same, but you'll have Person A and Side Character A instead of Person B and Side Character B, and the bits of dialog that changes. I haven't played both paths, so I can't give my thoughts on the differences, but it's something to mention.

So yeah, pick it up if you haven't already (since I do seem to be in the minority in my thoughts, most others loved the hell out of it), and if you do own it, play it already!

Braid
I like the mechanic behind it (no death just rewind the character's position/time to fix the mistake), but the game itself felt kind of boring.

Fowl Space
A rooster doesn't want have to get up so early in the morning, so the solution is to mount a turret on his back and destroy the sun. Beyond that, it's a "bullet hell" side-scroller in the way that Bleed or Ducktales is. Not going to say it's bad, but it's something I definitely have to be in the right mood for... which isn't too common, if I'm being honest.